Costa Rica was already relatively well endowed in human capital before economic reform,
but its economy demanded little of that resource. Manufacturing and services catered to a
closed and underdeveloped domestic market, and very simple unprocessed agricultural
products for export require little training and technical sophistication in their production
and management. The state bureaucracy was a very large part of demand for human
capital. This means that, as reform has progressed, the entry of qualified labor into the
export segment of the economy has been facilitated not only by the flow of entrants to the
job market, but also by a stock of older qualified workers already in the system who shift
from jobs where their abilities are underutilized.